


Strain

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Dominance, Dubious Consent, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Established Relationship, M/M, Manipulation, No Plot/Plotless, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2019-09-19
Packaged: 2020-10-17 02:46:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20613668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Will is always shaking in some part of himself; with fear, or pain, or panic, as if he lives on the quivering cusp of flight-or-flight adrenaline with every rapidfire beat of his heart; but Hannibal likes to see it drawn to the light, likes seeing that unbearable tension set free to ripple down the grooves of Will’s spine, to curl to claws at his fingers and press bone taut and straining like wings trying to break free of the restraint of skin stretched over them." Will has built himself up around a skeleton of tension and Hannibal likes to cut to the bone.





	Strain

Hannibal likes the way Will trembles.

It’s the tension in him. His entire being thrums with it, bone and blood and brain all resonating together in a perfect harmony of constant, unceasing strain. It’s not Hannibal’s doing -- it was there when Hannibal first saw him, present in the hunch of Will’s shoulders and the ill-controlled emotion in his voice -- but Hannibal has raised it to a symphony, has heightened the highs and deepened the lows and made of Will Graham a work of art that, as with so much of his work, no one else will ever entirely appreciate.

Hannibal doesn’t mind. His creativity is always half-known at best, sometimes outright scorned by those whose minds are too narrow and pleasures too proscribed to understand the satisfaction of true indulgence, of a welcoming of the darkness that is a victory instead of the surrender they always think it. His pleasures are his own, his appreciation sliced translucent-thin for his own gratification more than anyone else’s; and Will Graham is the keenest pleasure he has found in a long, long time.

He’s shaking, now. Will is always shaking in some part of himself; with fear, or pain, or panic, as if he lives on the quivering cusp of fight-or-flight adrenaline with every rapidfire beat of his heart; but Hannibal likes to see it drawn to the light, likes seeing that unbearable tension set free to ripple down the grooves of Will’s spine, to curl to claws at his fingers and press bone taut and straining like wings trying to break free of the restraint of skin stretched over them. His mind does for part of that, when his thoughts burn and consciousness chars to leave the vessel of his body unattended, absent its usual resident; and Hannibal is eminently capable of seeing to what remains.

Will’s body arches as Hannibal shifts into him, cresting a wave of sensation that fragments his breathing to gasping particulate, that lines the shape of his chest with the taut edges of ribs clawing against his sweat-slick skin. He’s burning, his mind and his body in equal measures if for different causes; Hannibal can taste the sweet of it in the air, the salt-caramel of sufficient heat to destroy the essential nature of what was and liquify it into something wholly new. The syrup of it is heady, intoxicating as rich wine as Hannibal draws it into his lungs to fill his own body with the stolen fire of Will’s; it draws him down, urging him closer over the form quaking helplessly beneath his focused gaze.

Hannibal’s shoulder works to brace him steady, one hand flat on the smooth-polished wood beneath Will’s sweat-slick skin. His other he lifts to touch to Will’s face, to stroke the damp-dark curls back around his scalp. Will’s head cants back, urged to motion by Hannibal’s intent more than whatever self-determination he may have in the fever-delirium wracking his consciousness; Hannibal draws his palm over the other’s face, feeling the heat of Will’s sweat slicking across his skin as he does. The clarity of it, of having Will so close, of feeling the jolts of tension running wild through his body as electricity crackles pointlessly through his mind, tightens Hannibal’s throat with the anticipation of satisfaction almost as keen in its pleasure as the satiation itself. Hannibal leans in closer, touching his nose to Will’s brow, drawing breath against the humid heat of his cheek, and when he moves again the action is instinctive, an expression of desire so innate it requires no conscious awareness at all.

Hannibal has craved this. His desires tend towards the carnal, in a more literal sense than most mean; but his lust for Will runs deeper than what he can satisfy even with his own considerable skill with knife and fork. There is something shattered in Will, cracks that run all the way down through his haunted eyes and behind his trembling lips, something that makes Hannibal ache with need like he’s never felt before in the whole of his life. He would split Will’s skull, in other circumstances, crack past bone and sink himself into the dense mass to find the core of Will Graham, to fit himself into every corner and crevice of the other’s psyche; but Will lays himself more bare than Hannibal could ever strip him, shatters his bones and pours out his blood and leaves himself raw as a mortal wound. All Hannibal needs to do is reach out and claim him, close his fingers and tighten his grasp around the desperate rhythm of the heart that Will wrenches free of his own ribcage to offer up voluntarily, and with Will doing all the damage all that is left for Hannibal is gentleness, a care so delicate it is nearly tender even as he paints his fingerprints to Will’s shivering skin and draws deep, draining breaths of heat to strain his own lungs on the radiant fever forming in Will’s.

Hannibal could speak. Will is past responding, likely past hearing; Hannibal could murmur whatever he likes, endearments or desire or threats made to promises, destruction honed to the elegance of a blade at his lips to draw over Will’s psyche with as much care as a knife laying bare the finest cut of meat. But his words feel empty, as hollow as the space in his chest from which they come, and so he speaks with his body instead, conversing in the only medium Will still has access to, via a means to which Will can’t help but respond. Hannibal presses his palm to Will’s chest to feel the other’s breathing reaching to fit itself to the cage of his fingers; he ducks close to touch his tongue to the curve of bone against Will’s shoulder, where the drawn-taut skin has formed a cup for the slick of the heat-sweat glistening over his body. Hannibal flattens the flex of his thigh beneath the pliant surrender of Will’s, slides his knee up to cant the other’s leg into a steeper angle, into a fuller submission; he trails his touch across Will’s chest, tipping his head to watch the way blood flushes hot in the path with no more urging than what friction the pads of his fingers may offer. His palm curves around, sliding to cup around the angle of bone at Will’s hip, to drag his fingers over the strain of muscle in the other’s body as if he’s feeling the strings of an instrument thrumming beneath his touch. Then Hannibal tightens his grip to dig his fingernails in past the surface of Will’s skin, to reach for the heat of blood coursing through the other’s body, and as Will arches up in instinctive tension Hannibal thrusts forward to claim the open offer of the other’s flesh via the demand of his own.

Will makes a sound. It’s not coherent, has no claim at all to the words that might accompany a plea; but the dark weight of his lashes flutters heavy over his eyes, and in the cording at his neck Hannibal reads the traction of pleasure reaching out to claim the tremor of the other’s body for its own. Hannibal draws a breath into his nose, long and savoring the shadow of heat-sweat, the sharper pang of arousal rising beneath it, and when he moves again it’s with his eyes half-lidded, so he can watch reflexive pleasure chase itself like clouds through the flex of a brow, against the slack curve of a lip, while turning the greater part of his attention to the sweet filling his nose and the pleasure building itself towards a crescendo in his body. He can feel the pull of it, clenching at his fingers and knotting in his belly and tight at his balls, as if the whole of his body is being drawn forward to follow Will into the same impossible tension he carries in himself every moment of the day.

Hannibal has often thought there is something orgasmic about Will’s experience of the world, some infinite relief when the other lets himself free to fill the space of another mind. Now he is sure of it, as his own existence begins to spill and bleed into the man before him. Hannibal is echoing Will’s trembling, feeling it break against him and resonate through the strain of his own peaking arousal; as if he is the curve of the instrument over which the strings of Will’s psyche are strung to such unbearable tension, reflecting and echoing back the other’s strain into full-throated music. Will is thrumming through himself, his body struggling with the sensations it finds climbing back from every overused nerve, and Hannibal can see the cracks forming in him, breaking open the wordless noises that rise up his throat as Hannibal moves into him, rolling his eyes back as a retreat from the inutility of vision, spasming into his chest, fingers, toes as sensation breaks free of his fast-waning strength to write itself to incoherent electricity in his nerves. His muscles shudder, reaching for the impossible strength to cling to something that can only ever be found in surrender; when Hannibal breathes in he can feel the humid heat of Will’s skin pressing itself to his lips, reaching to slide down his throat and fill his chest with as much radiant satisfaction as one might find at the lip of a wine glass. Hannibal draws Will open, unfolding the possibilities hidden in the space of his body, finding the taut friction within his flesh and the raw want that spills itself up his throat and fluttering at his lashes, and when Will’s hands come up it’s to struggle for stability, to reach for more, to sink his fingers into the curling mess of his own hair and to crush a palm against his chest like he means to slow the rhythm of his heart beneath the weight of his touch. His arms cross his body, trying to make a cage, to hold back what Hannibal has gone to such lengths to lay bare, and Hannibal leans in against his hand bracing at the floor and frees his hold on Will’s hip so he can reach for the other’s wrist instead.

“Will,” he says. His voice is strange, his accent slurring low and hot over the taste of the other’s name pouring up his throat; but Will is past recognizing speech in any case. It’s the sound he responds to, the tenderness of the tone that jerks at his head and struggles to raise his eyelids from where they are working over his unfocused eyes, and when Hannibal’s touch slides around Will’s wrist the tension in the other’s body releases even before Hannibal pulls to extend Will’s arm up towards him. Hannibal guides Will’s trembling fingers away from his own chest and up to Hannibal’s waist, slides his palm over the back of the other’s hand to hold his touch steady as Will quakes and gasps for air; it’s only when he feels the tension in the other’s grip flex weakly against him that he frees his hold so he can unwind the fist Will has made of his hair. He works each of Will’s fingers loose individually, easing their hold with careful intent; when he slides the last free Will’s hand struggles in his grasp, clutching at his fingers as if desperate for whatever support he can find. Hannibal lets Will’s grip tighten on him, even when the tension in the other’s fingers dips to dig in between the line of tendons at the back of his hand; when he leans in he pins Will’s hand to the floor beneath his palm, angling the rhythm of the pulse in the other’s wrist arching up into vulnerability. Will quakes beneath him, spending the tension of his body in a spasm of relief, and Hannibal leans in over him to frame Will’s shoulders with his own and catch the radiance of the other’s body against his own skin.

Hannibal’s hair falls forward to brush Will’s lashes, Hannibal’s lips skim at the corner of Will’s mouth. Will’s head turns, instinct seeking the press of Hannibal’s breathing against his even in whatever delirious haze has claimed him. Hannibal breathes in the taste of him, feverish and frightened and desperate with want, and then he tips his head to allowance and stifles Will’s voice with the press of his lips. Will makes a noise, vague and whimpering as a plea; Hannibal touches his tongue to Will’s lips to test the edges of it before delving deeper to claim more. Will’s jaw softens, his mouth going slack for Hannibal’s taking, and as Hannibal kisses him he leans harder into his grip at Will’s wrist and resumes the rhythmic action of his body into Will’s beneath him. Will tightens, his body clenching like a fist; but Hannibal has him held down, and when Will’s fingers tighten his nails just dig the deeper into Hannibal’s skin beneath them. Hannibal moves again, urging them both forward together, and Will’s tongue softens against his, Will’s fingers uncurl under the heat of his grip. His thighs open, easing into surrender, and Hannibal curves in over him to take this delicacy so long in the claiming.

Hannibal’s grip is firm on Will’s wrist, Will’s mouth is as full of Hannibal’s presence as Hannibal’s thoughts are of Will’s, and as they move towards satisfaction the barriers between them haze, melted away to blend the one into the other. Hannibal’s mouth tastes of Will, his skin is slick with the heat of Will’s sweat; Will’s fingers reach for Hannibal’s support, his breathing shudders in time with Hannibal’s movement. They are single, united, bodies and minds and thoughts, until the parting of their lips is no more a loss than the release of an exhale. They are gasping together, heat filling one pair of lungs and pouring itself into the other; Hannibal’s thoughts are dizzy as Will’s must be, sliding towards incoherence as quickly as heat swamps him. His body crests forward, reaching for the immediate satisfaction of an endless hunger; and Will arches beneath him, curving up to swallow Hannibal’s pleasure with the echo of his own. Will’s voice breaks, cracking high and bleeding as he tightens in a last strain of anticipation, and Hannibal thrusts into him, and Will sags into the weight of the same exquisite pleasure that blinds Hannibal’s vision and quivers electric down every vertebra in the curve of his spine. Will’s relief feeds Hannibal’s satisfaction, sharpening the edge of it to cut the deeper than it would alone, and beneath him Will trembles with sensation spilled so deep into his empathetic psyche that Hannibal is sure neither of them could say from which of them it originated.

Hannibal puts himself back together with care, reeling himself in piece by piece as he fits his awareness back within the restrictions of his physical form. His arms are tense, straining on the same effort that has knotted itself into his thighs and along the taut line of his belly; he lets the tension go with deliberate care, loosening each muscle in turn until he is languid with the comfort that comes of heat sunk bone-deep within a form. Will is still shaking, although with less strength than he manifested to start; his head is tipped to the side under its own weight, his lashes finally allowed to fall entirely to shadow his unfocused eyes. Hannibal sets his elbow against the floor to fix himself to greater stability before he moves; as he draws himself free of the clasp of Will’s body Will’s expression tightens, his brows creasing and lips parting on a huff of sensation that comes like the aftertaste of a whimper in his throat.

Hannibal rocks his weight back, fixing his knees at the floor and his palm for balance so he can take stock of the body laid out beneath him. Will’s knees are canted wide, all resistance long since disintegrated from his hold on it; the only tension they still show is the natural strain of tendons running from knee to groin, where mental surrender has yet to overcome the tension of physicality. Hannibal lifts his hand to touch against that line, to trace it up against the slick heat of Will’s skin; Will shivers against the floor, quivering helplessly under the friction of Hannibal’s touch against him as Hannibal continues up, tracing over the crease of hip and across the taut span of Will’s abdomen, where his body has spent itself to heat gone sticky and clinging against his skin. Will’s breathing shifts under Hannibal’s palm, his heart still pounding with the lingering effect of the strain the rest of his body has given up; when Hannibal’s fingers curl around Will’s throat to steady against his chin Will’s head turns without resisting the force of the other’s grip.

Hannibal shifts Will’s features up to the light, tilting the other’s head so he can watch the play of shadow along the bridge of his nose, smudging stubble at his chin, pooling insomnia in the delicate blood vessels below his heavy lashes. Will’s mouth is soft, his lips parted to submission with no persuasion from Hannibal at all, and even when his eyes shift beneath his lids his vision is hard-won and struggles for traction against Hannibal’s face. Hannibal waits, holding Will steady as the other wages a battle with his gaze; finally he manages it, pinning himself to focus at Hannibal’s steady consideration. Will’s forehead creases, his lips press together; when he speaks his voice is ragged, rasped to blood by the fever-heat in his veins. “Doctor Lecter?”

Hannibal’s lashes flutter over his gaze, just once, a breath of assent more than surrender. “Yes, Will,” he says, and leans forward to strip Will’s focus from him with the work of his tongue and the edge of his teeth.


End file.
